True Preparation for Parenthood

So you want to be a parent? Thinking about having children?

Lesson 1: Women: Put on a maternity dress and stick a beanbag chair down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After nine months, remove 10% of the beans.Men: Go to the supermarket and drugstore. Dump the contents of your wallet on the counter. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper, read it for the last time.

Lesson 2: Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their...1. Methods of discipline.2. Lack of patience.3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.4. Allowing their children to run wild.Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3:To discover how the nights will feel...1. Walk around the living room from 5 pm to 10 pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.2. At 10 pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 am.4. Set the alarm for 3 am.5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2 am and make a drink.6. Go to bed at 2:45am.7. Get up at 3am when the alarm goes off.8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.9. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years (if you have more than one, you can extend this fun section for years and years!!). Look cheerful.

Lesson 4: Can you stand the mess children make? To find out...smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower bed. Then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look? Now, you have thirty seconds to try to make everything look clean, because the doorbell just rang; it's the boss and his wife.

Lesson 5: Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this--all morning.

Lesson 6: Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Last take a milk carton, a Ping-Pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7: Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 8: Get ready to go out.Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front path.Walk back up it. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Give up and go back into the house.

Lesson 9: Always repeat everything you say at least, if not more than, five times.

Lesson 10: Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a preschool child. (A fully-grown goat is excellent.) If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Lesson 11: Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone. Tip half of the remaining portion into your lap. The other half just throw up in the air. You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old baby.

Lesson 12:Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, the Wiggles, Barney, Dragon Tales, Caillou, and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.

Lesson 13: Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down about halfway in and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for two years.

Lesson 14: Make a recording of Fran Drescher (she played on the show “The Nanny and has that obnoxious voice and laugh) saying mommy repeatedly. (Important: No more than a four-second delay between each mommy ; occasionally, crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required.) Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Lesson 15: Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt sleeve, or elbow while playing the mommy tape made from lesson fourteen above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Lesson 16: Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an important meeting. Take a cup of milk, and put ½ cup of Raisin Bran in it. Stir. Dampen a towel with this mixture. Now, dump the cup on your shirt and attempt to clean it with the towel. Do NOT change. You have no time. Go directly to work.

Lesson 17: Go for a ride, but first...1. Find one large tomcat and two pit-bull.2. Borrow three child safety seats and install them into the back seat of your car.3. While holding something fragile, strap the cat and pit bulls into their car seats.4. Keep the cat and the pit-bulls from touching each other while driving in heavy traffic.5. While the cat and pit-bulls fight, scratch and squeal, answer an important call on your cell phone. Put on your makeup while waiting at stoplights.6. Run several errands, removing and replacing the cat and pit-bulls at each stop.7. Take the cat and pit-bulls to a meeting. Prepare individual sandwich bags with equal portions of Little Friskies, and Purina Dog Chow.8. Try to enjoy the meeting while the cat and pit-bulls sniff and pull and howl about the contents of the other's bags.

Lesson 18: SMILE...because it is the most wonderful experience of your life!

(I read and laughed at every one of these lessons- as I could relate through being a child, talking with my parents/family with kids/friends with kids, and years upon years of babysitting...and guess what?? Yes, I still want to have kids!) Thanks Heather for posting these fun lessons!